


Hypochondria

by Overherenow



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff and Crack, Found Family, Gen, Web MD, google isn't always your friend, not a sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:35:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25808218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overherenow/pseuds/Overherenow
Summary: inspired by a prompt:  Newly mortal Andy vs Web Md
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 3
Kudos: 127





	Hypochondria

So a newly mortal woman, the internet and late-night googling is not a great idea. Andy’s head had been painful for the last few hours. She hadn’t had a headache for... well she couldn't remember having a headache unless she was healing from a head wound. She had asked Nicky, Nile, and Joe for suggestions on how to cure it. Nicky and Joe had just looked at each other confused. Nile stared at them in bemused confusion for a moment then suggested that she try drinking some water, taking some pain killers, and having a lie down in a dark room.

Andy had taken the advice of her youngest companion and had taken her advice but it didn't help. Her head was still throbbing, feeling heavy with pain and she now felt faintly nauseous. Nile was out somewhere and Nicky and Joe had already proven themselves useless in the treatment of minor mortal injuries so she had to consult another source.  
She glared at the WebMD Symptom checker where it said enter age: Unfortunately, when she wrote 6,734 years old the stupid computer had popped up a little annoying box that said “Please enter a valid age.” She sighed, she hated the internet. 

“That is my real age” she grumbled but entered a guess of her age of 30. She could not recall how old she was when she had first died and had honestly lost the ability to guess the ages of people younger than herself. She saw the years of long life on her face but had been told more than once that she looked early 30’s. 

She sighed and clicked continue. Then the stupid thing had a type box where she should enter her symptoms. She typed in “headache” - and was annoyed when the type box suggested “pain at head of the penis”. She stared at it a moment confused hadn’t she just checked another box where she told the machine she was female?

She toggled back a few letters and picked “Headache in front of head” then added “nauseated” to her list. She tried to type in “Annoyed” into the symptom checkbox but it sarcastically reported that there were “no results”.

Then she clicked continue. The machine asked which symptom was bothering her more. She clicked “Headache in front of head” and glared at the yes or no box asking if she was pregnant. Wondering how pregnancy could give you a headache she clicked no then ignored the previous medication box - alcohol probably didn't count. She briefly considered the past or current medical history question but discounted writing anything in it as her injury list was far too long. 

She clicked ok and read through the list that came up for Migraines, Chronic and acute Sinusitis. She read through them all and discounted them; they didn't really match her symptoms. More annoyed now than ever she just typed “headache and nausea????” Into google.

A long list came up on a website it suggested:  
stress or anxiety  
food poisoning  
food allergies  
high blood pressure  
diabetic ketoacidosis  
scarlet fever  
strep throat  
alcohol withdrawal delirium  
labyrinthitis  
early pregnancy  
infections, such as the common cold or flu  
brain infections, such as meningitis or encephalitis  
skull fractures  
Colorado tick fever  
malignant hypertension (arteriolar nephrosclerosis)  
poisoning due to black widow spider venom (black widow spider bites)  
polio  
anthrax  
Ebola virus and disease  
SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome)  
yellow fever  
carbon monoxide poisoning  
end-stage kidney disease  
malaria  
Addisonian crisis (acute adrenal crisis)  
medullary cystic disease  
West Nile virus infection (West Nile fever)  
adult brain tumor  
brain abscess  
acoustic neuroma  
endometriosis  
tonsillitis  
giardiasis  
fifth disease  
traumatic brain injuries, such as a concussion or subdural hematoma  
leptospirosis (Weil’s disease)  
subarachnoid hemorrhage  
low blood sodium (hyponatremia)  
brain aneurysm  
dengue fever  
HELLP syndrome  
preeclampsia  
hepatitis A  
shigellosis  
toxic shock syndrome  
acute mountain sickness  
glaucoma  
stomach flu (gastroenteritis)  
premenstrual syndrome (PMS)  
menstrual period  
Andy blinked at the list and began to work her way through them. By the time Nile came back an hour later she was sitting at the table, her head in her hands with Joe and Nicky trying to comfort her.

“How would you have caught West Nile fever?” Joe was saying to her “We are in England, they do not have the virus-carrying mosquitoes here? Ditto Dengue fever. And I seriously think that it is Ebola”

Nicky stroked his hands through her hair “and if it was Carbon monoxide poisoning we would all have it. You haven't stopped drinking so it can’t Alcohol withdrawal nor are you diabetic.”

“I don’t have a cold” Andy told them “Nor any recent skull fractures.” 

“We aren't that high in altitude so it can’t be altitude sickness and you don’t have glaucoma,” Joe tells her gently.

“That's it then,” Andy said hoarsely “I have a brain tumor.” 

Nicky and Joe both look at each other horrified. 

“Did you google your symptoms?” Nile asks tiredly once glance at the laptop confirms her suspicions. The laptop is open on Web MD and numerous tabs are open from where the team has looked up all the suggested diseases. “Never google your symptoms, that way leads to madness and hypochondria,” she says exasperatedly reaching for the laptop to begin closing down all of the pages. “Andy just has a headache. She'll be fine in a few hours.” 

“It does seem to be easing,” Andy tells her slowly.

“Drink some more water and go lie down,” Nile tells her softly “I'm sure it will be better soon. If not or it gets worse we will take you to a doctor just to be sure. Ok?”

The three older immortals nod together in tandem. 

Sure enough, when Nicky called them all for dinner Andy was feeling a lot better.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this was inspired by the prompt "Crackfic where Andy starts getting into reading WebMD and the Crew™ has to stage an intervention cause she’s driving them up the wall" I wrote it in an hour that's why it's rubbish.  
> I did use the actual Web Md website for this and then just googled the symptoms surprisingly Web MD did not just spit cancer out at me the list of diseases is from Healthline (https://www.healthline.com/health/headache-and-nausea) and was so impressive that I had to add it verbatim.
> 
> For the record about Andys' age, Charlize Theron is 45 at the making of the old guard I gave Andy the assumed age of 30 as I imagine Andy would have forgotten her physical age and made an educated guess just on how she looks. 
> 
> On a more important note: If you are worried about a medical symptom please see your doctor and not Dr Google.


End file.
